A wide variety of cable arrangements are utilized in the telecommunications industry. Such cable arrangements cables include twisted pair cables. Twisted pair cables include at least one pair of insulated conductors that are twisted about one another to form a pair of two conductors. A plurality of pairs of two conductors can sometimes twist about each other to define a twisted pair core. A plastic jacket is typically extruded over a twisted pair core to maintain the configuration of the core and to function as a protective layer.
As twisted pairs are closely positioned in cables and the cables are positioned close together, electrical energy may be transferred between twisted pairs of adjacent cables. This type of cable-to-cable interference is commonly referred to as alien crosstalk. The telecommunications industry is continuously striving to increase the speed and/or volume of signal transmissions through the cables. One problem that concerns the telecommunications industry is the increased occurrence of alien crosstalk associated with high-speed signal transmissions. Therefore, the increase in signal frequencies associated with the high-speed transmissions requires improved alien crosstalk performance.
In some applications, to reduce the problem of alien crosstalk in a twisted pair cable, a layer of electrical shielding is provided between the core of twisted pairs and the cable jacket. In other applications, the cable includes a layer of electrical shielding that surrounds the core of twisted pairs. However, such existing applications have not been fully satisfactory in achieving smaller diameters of the cables and reducing alien crosstalk while improving signal transmission performance of the cables (e.g., cables for unshielded twisted pair (UTP) applications).